If you have an Apple Account (iTunes, iPad, iPhone) there is a Phishing email scam going on. Here's an email I received, note that the return email address is fake. Looks real though, pass this along and if you receive the email do not reply to it or click the link....

Keynote integrates well with Photoshop, which means you can easily import PNG files for use in your presentations. In this tutorial, find out how to assemble a layered file in Keynote, and get some expert tips for building presentations based on Photoshop images, such as making your PNGs all the same dimension. Watch more at http://www.lynda.com/Keynote-tutorial... . ...

Watch more at http://www.lynda.com/Business-Compute... . This tutorial demonstrates how to run an iPad presentation from a television using an HDMI cable and how to interact with that presentation using a touch-enabled "laser pointer."...

Watch more at http://www.lynda.com/Business-Compute... . Find out how to get the most out of the Presenter Display feature in Keynote, which allows you, as a presenter, to view presenter notes, set timers, and more....

Apple offers a useful utility to transfer files from one machine to another Migration Assistant. However, its pretty easy to make some bad choices that can make the process painful. Here are some do's and don'ts. Do repair permissions with Disk Utility on the machine you are going to be copying from. Do run Software Update on the source Mac to confirm that the latest updates are installed. Don't try to run Migration Assistant over a WIFI network. (23 hours versus 2.5). Do connect the two machines together directly with an Ethernet cable. Don't run the Migration Assistant directly from...

I recently had the Archive utility on my Mac go bonkers. Double-click on any zip archive or download a file from the net and it just sat there spinning. Fortunately I have good friends who are geekier than me. Thanks to Jeff Greenberg ( https://twitter.com/filmgeek ) I'm up an running again. Thought I'd share in case its happened to you. In the Mac Finder, hold down the Option key. Click the Go Menu and choose Library . In the search field, enter the text com.apple.archiveutility.plist. Narrow the search results to just your library. Trash one or both files that are...

I figured out this deal last year. Best Buy always drops $100 iTunes cards to $80 over Black Friday weekend. Free shipping included. You are limited to 3 per order. But not 3 total. I just ordered 15 cards (yes, I spend that much on software and digital publications easily in a year). The codes work on iTunes, the iBook store, and the Mac App Store. Enjoy. Direct Link http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Apple+-+%24100+iTunes+Gift+Card/4056157.p?id=12 18452832749&skuId=4056157...

Recent versions of the Mac OS have decided that you weren't really smart enough when it came to saving your files. When you went to save a new version of a file, you'd be presented with options like Duplicate, Revert, and Move To. I (and many others) found them terribly confusing. Now with Mac OS 10.8.2 you can get the old commands back the return of the Save As command: "- Adds an option to discard the changes in the original document when choosing - Save As" This is useful in the following scenario. You can choose to open an...

Recently at the D: All Things Digital conference Tim Cook, when asked about the various Apple TV rumors, said that TV is "an area of intense interest for [Apple]." In the past Steve Jobs referred to Apple TV as a hobby and ever since then Apple fans have been waiting to see when, or if, it would graduate from hobby status to center stage along side the iPad and iPhone (though I doubt there is anything Apple TV could do to steal the limelight from the those two).
...

The recent, um, 'upgrade' to the Mac Pro followed by the unconfirmed leak (which was later confirmed) about real upgrades possibly coming to the Mac Pro next year got me thinking again about what a totally redesigned Mac Pro could look like.
...

After lots of testing and comparing, we've made the decision to move two original series to Avid Media Composer 6. PBS series "This American Land" is starting up Season Two next week and in about a month or so we'll be kicking off a new original reality series.
...

One of my favorite things about iWork from Apple was its ability to share documents online for review and approval. It made it very easy to control access of clients and give them a unique login to view and comment about what you were posting. Whether you were collaborating with a team or just needed secure delivery, the service just worked well. So of course, Apple just killed it. Last year, we launched iCloud, a service that stores your music, photos, documents, and more and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices. Today, there are already over 40 million documents...

Photo iStockPhoto. Yesterday while in the middle of a huge back-up, the power went out. My drive (which was not on an Uninterruptible Power Supply) went down . hard. After a reboot... things did not look good. The Drobo Dashboard saw the drive but my Mac wouldn't mount it. No disk repair program would bring it to life Disk Warrior Fail Drive Genius Fail Disk Utility Fail Four more other apps nope. Then I had an idea. I used Drive Genius to reparation the drive. I told it to just create a new partition that was the exact same size...

Apple just released two new software updates for their photo editing tools. If you're using iCloud with iOS 5, be sure to check out the update. About Aperture 3.2 Aperture 3.2 supports compatibility with iCloud and iOS 5. This update also addresses minor stability, performance and compatibility issues, including: Resolves an issue that could cause the "Loading" indicator to reappear in the Viewer when cropping a photo Aperture now automatically relaunches into Full Screen mode if the application was in Full Screen mode when last quit Pinch-to-zoom gesture now automatically activates Zoom mode in the Viewer Left and right swipe...

When it comes to my laptop, I'm a bit of a control freak. I live or die professionally because of this machine. I've been very happy with the OSX Lion upgrade, except I was missing a lot of controls in the Finder windows. By default, your windows will look like this... Or like this (depending on your previous preferences). The key is to go under the view menu and turn on several options: Show Path Bar Show Status Bar Show Sidebar Now your windows will look like this.: Much greater control. You can quickly switch between common folders with the...

We’re one week into our search to transition our facility away from Apple and Final Cut Pro so I wanted to bring everyone up to date on where we stand so far. This was a very busy week as you can imagine with both production work in the shop and many MANY requests for myself to speak to national media outlets, podcasts and personal visits to our facility. So the testing will really ramp up this coming week.
...

Need to quickly change your audio options on your Mac? There's a great shortcut to quickly access both Input and Output devices as well as Sound Preferences. Simply Option+click on the volume button and it will change to your relevant audio controls. Thanks to Jeff Greenberg for teaching me a great tip....

Apple just released a small update to Aperture that addresses many small (but important) issues. Here are the highlights: iPhoto Compatibility ▪ Resolves an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly when importing large iPhoto libraries. ▪ Aperture now correctly handles albums contained in folders when importing iPhoto 9.1.1 libraries. ▪ Improves reliability when importing iPhoto 9 libraries that include slideshows containing text slides. ▪ RAW images imported from iPhoto 9 libraries no longer show the Reprocess brick in Adjustments. Import ▪ Addresses an issue that could cause Aperture to stop responding when attempting to process damaged images. ▪...

The term vignette is used to describe an image whose brightness fades to its periphery from the center. This produces a darkening at the edges of the image. In some cases, vignettes are desirable and they re applied or enhanced for artistic effect after the image is shot. Fortunately, Aperture provides flexible controls for both removing and adding vignettes to your photos in a nondestructive fashion. Aperture offers the Vignette adjustment controls to apply an artistic vignette to an image. With these controls you can add vignettes to a photo after it s shot. This is often done to simulate...

Apple released a free update to Aperture that addresses overall stability and performance issues, and also includes specific fixes that: address compatibility with the iLife Media Browser improve reliability when upgrading existing Aperture libraries address issues with publishing photos to MobileMe, Facebook and Flickr The update is recommended for all users of Aperture 3....

I've been an Apple TV fan from the very beginning.... I've often talk about how much I like it and even have a few blog posts on it ( 1 , 2 , 3 ). Here's my short review of the new one. It's awesome. Okay, now I'll tell you why I love it so much. It's cheap $99 is a steal. Sure they got the price down by removing an internal drive... but things change. I no longer need a hard drive to store movies. I've been using a Drobo FS as my home media server with iTunes and...

As I've been on the Creative Cow Final Cut Pro forums about 9 years now, I have seen all manner of people whine and complain about stability issues with Final Cut Pro. Sometimes it's truly Apple breaking stuff or releasing versions of Quicktime or FCP before they're ready. But often, it's operator error / configuration error.
...

By now some of you probably think that I am an Apple fanboy. That's actuslly not the case. I spent the largest part if my professional life with PCs and Linux machines. I did write quite a bit about Apple lately because they simply make excellent products that I enjoy greatly.
Apparently the Cupertinians have become a favorite target of blogger and technopress lately, probably because of the Gizmodo fiasco, even though Gizmodo acted in unethical ways, bordering on the criminal.
Anyway, i was reading a review of the iPhone 4 on the Wired magazine website and I noticed a glaring mistake...

This is going to be my shortest blog entry but it marks a new era for the COW crowd.
iMovie for iPhone!
Yep! iPhone 4.0 records 720p HD video at 30fps and you can edit the movies directly on it. From the makers of FCP!
Announced today at the Apple World Wide Developer Conference....

I just had lunch with some of my ex-colleagues from Borland and, of course, we talked about the Apple iPad controversy centered around the choice of development tools. We all heard reports of the government being on the verge of starting an anti-trust probe, so this is a sensible subject for anybody involved in high tech.
While we were weighting all the different sides of the argument my friend Kevin brought up the fact that Sony and Nintendo have quite a closed environment for the development of games. And suddenly the whole issue made perfect sense to me. Here we have...

The 2010 National Association of Broadcasters convention had the Post Production world buzzing about the Three A's of the industry. Apple, Adobe and Avid. Well, really more Adobe and Avid since they were actually at the show and had something to demonstrate.
Adobe brought their CS5 creative suite to the show with some incredible announcements. Not the least of which to me is the ease of integration with other NLEs like Final Cut Pro and Avid. Adobe has decided to "play nice" with with their competitors to make it easier for Post Houses like mine to get projects...

I stumbled upon this a few months ago when I was adjusting some settings in Quicktime...
Have you ever opened a RED proxy in Quicktime and wondered why it looks so soft or compressed? Well basically Quicktime can be moronic and automatically prioritizes playback quality over image quality with certain codecs. Here's how to more accurately view the footage...
Make sure to tick the High Quality option in the Quicktime Movie Properties window.
Here's some untouched/unprocessed screenshots from an LG spot I worked on last year...
Regular
High Quality
These are low quality JPEG's, but I think you can...

We now have the actual product features page from the Broadcom 5764 Ethernet Controller that's now in the i7 and i5 iMacs. It's been said a photo tells a 1,000 words. I think this pretty much tells the story of the "i" line of iMacs.
Jumbo Frame Support - NO.
Without Jumbo Frame support, there's no way to connect to our Final Share SAN which is all ethernet based. No Jumbo Frame support, no professional video editing in our facility.
I've had all sorts of people write to me with various theories and ideas as to why Apple...

SEE UPDATES BELOW, I've updated this story twice since the original entry.
We took delivery of the brand spankin' new 27" i7 iMac last week and connected it immediately to our Final Share SAN in about 5 minutes for video editing. Quick tests showed the SAN was connected and working fine.
Then today I started really editing on it and I'm dropping frames every 10 to 30 seconds. Now it appears the ethernet controller that is in the new Mac cannot support the speeds necessary to edit video via the SAN. Our 2 year old iMacs can, but the brand spanking...

“Apple lays off 40 people from the FCP development staff right before NAB 2010.
Is it doomed?”
“Apple has laid off many people involved in the development in FCP. Will FCP languish now?”
If it’s getting close to NAB, it must be time for the new “Final Cut Pro is going away” rumor to start. By now, anyone who works with Apple’s Final Cut Pro software has probably seen the “tweet heard ’round the world” that Apple has apparently laid off 40 people from the Final Cut Pro development team. So of course we have to have multiple threads appear in the...

Apple quietly updated their Mac Pro lineup last Friday and the Octo Core 2.93 is now absent. This is the machine I purchased in July 2009 that has been pretty much nothing but trouble since it was installed.
As I've noted on this blog recently, there is a bad issue with the Intel Hartwell chip that runs the ethernet ports that causes the Mac Pro to disconnect from our ethernet SAN multiple times per day. We also have difficulties reconnecting to the SAN multiple times per day. Our other 5 workstations don't have these issues with the SAN and none of...

As we have discovered with worsening problems over the past 6 months, Apple has a very serious problem with their latest Mac Pro machines running the Intel "hartwell" chip on the ethernet ports. With bi-directional traffic to / from our ethernet based SAN, we can predict that our latest Mac Pro, the 2.93 Nehelam quad core machine, will disconnect from our SAN 8 times out of 10. The problem has been worsening and so far Apple has zero answers to the problem. Even Snow Leopard does not address this issue.
If you have any machine prior to the 2.93 Quad Core...

The Hollywood Reporter reports that 65% of the 2010 Super Bowl is already sold out, including all of the first-half "A" spots. The prices are running in the $2.7-2.8 million range - just off the 2009 rate (as high as $3 mil, but largely in the $2.8-2.9 mil range), but still ahead of 2008.
It's not that CBS doesn't have its hands full, and its work cut out for it. Last year at this time, NBC had already sold 85% of its spots - but they're feeling good about getting there in fine shape. It's certainly far from the cratered, post-apocalyptic...

My edit suite runs two 25' DVI extenders, VERY heavy duty extenders that were about $120 each. This suite has run with the G5 Quad 2.5, the Mac Pro Quad 3.0 and the Mac Pro Octo 3.2 with zero issues running two DVI monitors and the extenders.
Now I get the $7,000 top of the line Apple Octo Core machine with the ATI 4870 graphics card which of course Apple mandates with one regular DVI port and one Mini DVI port. I got the adapter that allows me to run two standard DVI monitors. The one connected to the Mini DVI...

In case you haven't read the light grey print on Apple's website....
Mac OS X Snow Leopard requires an Intel-based Mac.
No whining, no griping, if you haven't upgraded to an Intel Mac, then stay on Leopard and keep working away. When the time is right, you will be able to upgrade to an Intel Mac and Snow Leopard at the same time.
Oh and Snow Leopard is only $29 to upgrade from Leopard so that's pretty cool. No $129 upgrade fee or whatever is has been for the past few OS updates....

So I was at an Apple Business Networking event last week here in Atlanta and I asked my business rep about signing up for some One-on-One training for iWeb. It's a simple enough program but there are some aspects of it and re-working my website that would be better if I worked with a trainer one-on-one at the store. He told me I can't sign up for one-on-one unless I purchase a computer. It's Apple's new policy that people cannot simply sign up for one-on-one training anymore unless you purchase a product.
Ok, so I have 4 Mac desktops, 4 iMacs,...

Tim Robinson is the Corporate Video Editor for Pride Mobility Products Corp.
Makers of the Jazzy Powerchair, Scooters, Lift Chairs and other mobility products!
At our company we’ve been strictly a PC world. When the new head of IT asked us, “Why don’t you guys run macs? My daughter’s graphic design school runs nothing but macs!” We had to explain his predecessor strictly prohibited using macs because his IT staff could not “support” them. Before he even finished the sentence “What if we bought you guys…” we excitedly shouted ‘YES!’
The transition was not easy for both IT and later us....

My first thought after finding out that the new Mac Pro with two 2.93GHz quad-core processors was going to cost $5899 was, "Six grand for a computer? And that doesn't include AppleCare!" For some people, the extra money is worth it, but more most, it's going to be a waste. If I was going to spend that much money on a computer, I'd rather throw in another $600 and buy two of the 2.26GHz Mac Pros instead. OR TEN OF THE NEW MAC MINIS!!!!.
It will be interesting to see some real world specs comparing the new and the old....

Editorial has been completed on the new business television pilot developed by Biscardi Creative Media, ideaWercs and Arriving with BB Webb. BCM Principal Walter Biscardi, Jr. served as Director, Editor and Post Production Supervisor on this project. Additional credits include Brian Mead for logo design, Aaron R. Stewart for graphics design and Brian Little for opening title design. The episode was produced in 720p HD. More details will be provided as the series moves towards full production of Season One....

Biscardi Creative Media recently delivered an introductory project for an upcoming feature-length documentary about River Blindness disease. Produced by Gary Strieker and Cielo Productions, the project was a 10 minute overview of what the disease is and a brief look into some of the preventative measures being implemented by The Carter Center. The presentation, "The Crab and the Fly" was shot in 720p HD in multiple locations in Africa and Latin America over a two year period. Editorial was performed by Aaron R. Stewart and the final presentation was delivered on 1080i BluRay disc using BCM in-house BluRay authoring &...